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Denver testing scandal spotlights reform fallacies

In August 2010, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg stood at a press conference held at Beach Court Elementary in North Denver, hailing the school as a model for its skeptic defying rise in test scores. Now, less than two years later, Boasberg has suspended Beach Court Principal Frank Roti as a state investigation begins into chimeric test scores touted by Boasberg himself.

The unexamined question, of course, is why the miracle scores at Beach Court didn’t earn earlier examination. Part of the story is wishful thinking. Who wouldn’t want to buy the story that a miracle worker principal could take a poverty-ridden school like Beach Court and turn in it into a learning machine. As important is the ideological corporate-style education reform narrative that schools are failing students and the right kind of data-driven system with accountability thumbscrews works to educate kids who otherwise have the deck stacked high against them. In this narrative, hard core business executives like Boasberg can drive change, get rid of underperforming teachers, close failing schools, win corporate grants and like a bespectacled superhero, save the day for poor kids. The truth is sadly different. Boasberg, who has scant experience with learning and education, is just another sucker, whether dealing with Wall Street banks or believing students can suddenly learn a whole lot more than their peers and demonstrate that on flawed tests.

Keying this all is the way the apparent cheating was detected. Not by some statistical sleuthing, as was suggested by the press release put out by Boasberg. DPS put in extra monitoring at Beach Court during this year’s testing. Test scores plunged. The state will now hire statistical experts to look for erasure patterns and another irregularities. At the cost of thousands of dollars, more money into the testing machine which is already impoverishing the education of children everywhere.

One of the key fallacies bedeviling the Boasberg approach is a very simple insight, apparently missed by Boasberg and his reformer brethren. Reading and writing are skills, the acquisition of which has a major developmental component. Hence, to some essential degree, growth in those skills have developmental speed governors, and every individual child has to move through developmental milestones on the path to literacy. You can’t speed that up, and thus, when aggregating the test scores of individual learners, stunning growth is unlikely. Boasberg, and others, including the majority of the Denver School Board, many state legislators and national policy makers confuse that developmental process with knowledge acquisition. Unlike cramming for a fact-based test, which clearly can show impressive “growth,” more and more intensive instruction cannot replace the intellectual development necessary for literacy. Kids, with different birthdays, different genetic and gender-based make ups, nutrition and environmental inputs, proceed as biology dictates as much as by instructional impacts.

‘Ultimately, our duty is to serve our kids and our families, and they deserve a thorough and truthful picture of how students are progressing academically,” said Boasberg in a press release. What goes unquestioned is whether the tests or system they create either foster or measure academic progress. Boasberg is yet to demonstrate a meaningful understanding of the nature of education and learning.

Likely, cheating is endemic in Denver Public Schools as Boasberg, the state and federal government ratchet up the pain for poor performance, just as it has been in Atlanta, D.C. and other places. Kids talk about, and teachers eye their high performing peers with suspicion, undermining the collaboration key to learning. One principal at North Denver’s Edison Elementary is even dismantling the school’s gifted education program under the misguided notion that spreading out the ‘smart’ students will lift their fellows. The cost comes in the form of stressed out kids, many who now reject learning of all forms, having been subjected to the incredible expectations of adults who should know better.

Denver School Board Member Andrea Merida, a consistent critic of Denver’s high-stakes testing regime, said “I am heartened that the district is moving decisively to investigate and get to the bottom of the situation. However, instead of focusing on a couple of anomalies, we need to be asking questions about whether the high-stakes testing culture is right for our kids overall. When the only metric that matters is the almighty standardized test score, and when curriculum is narrowed more and more to focus only on test performance, we can expect mistakes to be made. DPS’ high-stakes testing culture is unsustainable, and it’s time for parents to exercise their parental rights under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and consider opting out their children from standardized tests.”Roti was quoted by the Denver Post in 2009: “There is no secret, and no mysterious formula,” said Frank Roti, Beach Court’s principal for eight years. “We all share the same vision — we want students to succeed.”

If it turns out that there was a secret at Beach Court, Roti shouldn’t be the only one to pay a price. The entire high-stakes testing system, and the policy-makers like Boasberg who embrace it, should be scrapped.